ARTS

Stop subsidising opera!

Michael Scott says the Royal Opera's problem is too much state cash, not too little The only thing the Royal Opera seems to have done successfully is shoot itself in the foot — it has, literally, pulled the house down on itself. Instead of wasting £213 mil- lion attempting to renovate a worn-out and hopelessly outdated Victorian theatre, it would have been far better to build a new one.

The present opera house was opened in 1858. It was fitting then, when the popula- tion was only half of what it is today; now it has long become superannuated. All the face-lifting in the world cannot substantial- ly change it; even after the renovation is complete, there will still be fewer than 2,200 seats. From a large number of them the sight-lines are poor — not just from the inexpensive gallery slips, but also from the sides of the stalls circle. For opera it is at least possible to hear something from these seats; but for ballet only a handkerchief- sized portion of the stage is visible.

The backstage amenities may be revolu- tionised, but what point is there in spend- ing such a sum when the relatively small number of seats available ensures ticket prices will always have to be unreasonably inflated? At the Commons select commit- tee meeting, Gerald Kaufman accused the Royal Opera management of being incom- petent: it might have been kinder to call it unbusinesslike. What it needs is to get its priorities dictated by commercial consider- ations. It should not be run just for the board, nor for the singers, orchestra play- ers, conductors or stage directors, but for the audiences.

With the upsurge of interest in opera and the growing affluence of the public, one does not need to be a seer to prophesy that what audiences will want — increas- ingly over the next decade — is a new opera house, one with 3,500 seats, like the Metropolitan in New York. There is no need to worry unduly about the size of such an auditorium: these days, opera singers' voices can be — and sometimes are — sat- isfactorily amplified.

Think of the amount of publicity that the building of a new theatre could have secured, especially if the chairman of the board works in public relations, like Lord Chadlington. Support for a new, larger, less oligarchical, more democratic-sized Royal Opera from a far wider group of compa- nies and institutions might have been achieved. Last week the Midland Bank called it 'elitist', and withdrew its backing. Banks are nothing if not economic; to sur- vive they have to keep their eyes focused on the market.

The excuse that the board was afraid of losing the opera's patrons if it moved to a new theatre was surely disingenuous. It scarcely needs much foresight to have anticipated another, and greater, objection to rebuilding the old theatre: what to do with the patrons during the fallow period? There was no surer way of losing them than have the company troll around like a trav- elling troupe.

In order to seduce the general public to the Shaftesbury Theatre, the Royal Opera indulged in what looks like an act of conde- scension, chucking on stage a cheap-skate production of Lehar's The Merry Widow, sung in English. No commercial company would have been so cynically naive as to believe that that was all that was necessary to bring the public in. Has no one at Covent Garden seen any of Lloyd Web- ber's spectacular shows?

From the critical reaction and the wealth of empty seats, another and not very differ- ent kind of naivety is apparent in the titling of the Royal Opera's Albert Hall concerts `Night of the Stars'. To be sure, there are many different types of stars, right down to those of the 21st magnitude, but to see them you would need a 200" telescope!

The excuse that to build an acoustically `You want me to put you on a pedestal as well?' perfect and tasteful-looking new opera house was impossible has been successfully disproved by a British architect: look at Glyndebourne. It is in every way a textbook example; who doubts it shows the way of the future? Glyndebourne has got its house in order and demonstrates how an opera company in Great Britain can be a success when run privately.

The crisis shows that as long as the Royal Opera is allowed to lean on government funding then it will keep on sticking its head in the sand. To give it more subsidy will inevitably lead to bankruptcy. Those who complain about the meanness of suc- cessive governments, and glibly cite the examples of continental opera houses, can have little knowledge of what they are talk- ing about. If they knew anything then they would surely know of the manifold prob- lems created by European Union labour laws, or corruption and cousinage.

It has taken the best part of half a centu- ry for Britain to become a meritocracy, and it's time to slough off the old tired habits of the past. If we need an example to follow with opera, then look at America, not just at the Metropolitan, but at the many well- organised companies active in other big cities. None of them is subsidised.

Thirty years ago, I was artistic director of the London Opera Society. We lasted only three years. We had no public subsidy then; those were the days long before businesses were given tax-relief incentives. We gave four concert performances of operas a sea- son, introducing for the first time this cen- tury works such as Rossini's Semiramide, Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia and Roberto Devereux and Bellini's Il Pirata at the Albert Hall, Festival Hall and Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Many now world-famous singers, like Montserrat Caballe, Placid° Domingo, Ruggero Raimondi and Sherrill Milnes, made their London debuts in them; and we presented Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Home, Carlo Bergonzi and Boris Christoff in operas they had not sung before in Lon- don. We sold the subscriptions ourselves, took the money at the box-office, and pro- duced illustrated programmes. The only assistance we could afford was one full- time secretary.

What the Royal Opera needs is not more subsidy — at best that will merely continue the crisis; only the kind of business ratio- nale Mrs Thatcher introduced will cause it to concentrate.

The author has published biographies of Caruso and Callas, as well as, in conjunction with EMI, The Record of Singing, a history of opera on 78 rpm.